Saturday, June 07, 2008

Why Can't a Democrat be More Like a Man? (5.30.09)

One of the most interesting works of anthropology I’ve ever read is The Human Animal, by Weston LaBarre. LaBarre was both an anthropologist and a psychoanalyst, and this book deals with exactly what I attempted to outline in Chapter Three of my book, that is, how primates and proto-humans eventually evolved into proper (some of us, anyway) human beings. Being that it was published in 1954, many of the details in his book have undoubtedly been superseded by more recent research. And yet, he captured the big picture in a way that few people even attempt to do these days.

I don’t know of anyone else who cites LaBarre as an influence, but if nothing else, he’s a very entertaining writer, full of pithy and astringent comments, asides, and insults. Interestingly, he was a militant atheist, but that doesn’t necessarily bother me. So long as someone has a piece of the truth, their overarching philosophy is of no consequence to me, no matter how shallow or ignorant. I have no difficulty accepting whatever parts of Darwinism comport with perennial truth. I only reject those parts of Darwinism that are not true and cannot possibly be true.

Chapter 6 of The Human Animal deals with sexual differences and the evolutionary circumstances that supposedly allowed humanness to emerge. In an evolutionary tradeoff, human brains grew so rapidly that women had to give birth earlier and earlier, to the point that the brain's incomplete neurology could only be wired together in the extra-uterine environment. The resulting infantile helplessness (and maternal preoccupation) meant that the family unit switched from the mother-infant diad to the mother-father-infant triad. These symbiotic relationships further modified all of their members, as they adapted to -- and became intersubjective members of -- each other, thereby creating the "interior unity" of the family (which mirrors the dynamic interior unity of the Creator).

LaBarre notes that “a society’s attitudes toward women and toward maternity will deeply influence its psychological health and all other institutional attitudes.” He wrote in 1954 -- well before the degradations to womanhood brought about by the feminist movement -- that “It is a tragedy of our male-centered culture that women do not fully enough know how important they are as women.” Sadly, today so many women only know how important they are as men. This is a tragedy of monumental proportions, in part because it also results in men not understanding their own role in terms of being men.

One of the keys to understanding male-female differences lies in examining the different ways in which we are permitted to love. As a child we must love in one way, but in order to become an adult we must love in others. The process is significantly more complicated for males, because our first love object is the mother with whom we are merged. Male identity must first be wrested and won from this primordial union, otherwise there will be no manhood, only maleness. In other words, our love must transition from male-female, to male-male, then back to male-female. Many things can go wrong along the way, as you might well imagine.

On the other hand, female identity is coterminous with their union with the Great Mother, both literally and archetypally. They only have to transition from the female-female love to female-male. As a result, their identity is much more secure, because they never have to renounce the primitive identification with the Great Mother, at least totally. Still, things can and do go wrong, for any number of reasons we don't have time to discuss here.

All primitive men know that women can magically produce children out of their bodies. This is another reason that women are generally more “grounded” and secure in their identity than men are. It would also explain the essential restlessness (and sometimes rootlessness) of men, along with the psychological adaptiveness of male homophobia. (A couple of days ago we were discussing the hobo archetype; there is a reason why they are almost always male, whereas the female usually has a much stronger nesting instinct.)

Femaleness as a category is secure: its undeniable signs are menstruation and maternity. But manhood -- as opposed to mere biological maleness -- has no such obvious visible markers. Rather, it is something that must be constructed and achieved. The adaptive mechanism that allows males to become men is culture.

What connects mother to infant is very concrete: the breast and all it symbolizes and implies ("breast" is a psychoanalytic term of art that is more analogous to "cosmic source of all goodness," if viewed from the infant's omnipotent perspective.) Likewise, what originally connected male to female was the evolutionary change that made females sexually available year-round.

But what connects man to man? “What connects father and son, male and male, is the mystery of logos and logos alone...” It is through this shared pattern that “father can identify with son and permit his infancy, within which son can identify with father and become a man, and within which a male can perceive and forgive the equal manhood of his fellow man.” (In rereading that passage it has a couple of very powerful ideas: permit the infant to live [both literally and symbolically, and both internal and external], and forgive the manhood of fellow men; few cultures have fully succeeded in doing this, certainly not Islamic culture.)

At the foundation of the State, writes LaBarre, “is our struggle to find both paternal power [an aspect of the vertical] and brotherly justice [the vertical prolonged into the horizontal] in the governing of men.” This is why something very psychologically noxious happens when government becomes mother. A similar thing happens when God becomes mother or mother becomes God. It interferes with the primordial basis of culture qua culture, which is to convert boys to men. If that fails to happen -- as with the left -- then civilization either cannot form or will not be able to sustain and defend itself, since there will be no men or manhood, only Democrats, or women and children.

This would explain the (until recently) universal practice of various male initiation rituals, in which boys are sometimes brutally wrenched away from their mothers in order to facilitate male “rebirth” and full membership in the fellowship of men. Again, femaleness is given by biology, but maleness must be proven, not just to oneself, but to the group. If appropriate models are not given for this drive, we will simply have pathological versions of it, such as the urban youth gang, which is all about proving one’s manhood, only to other female-centered boys.

In fact, this is why so much contemporary rap and hip hop is so perversely male. In a matriarchal culture so lacking in male role models, these clueless boys are constantly trying to prove that they are what they imagine a man -- and themselves -- to be. This is why they are such pathetic, brooding, aggressive, and hyper-sexualized caricatures of manhood. (And ultimately this results from female sexuality reverting back to the mother-infant diad, with no role for men.)

Other males -- we call them liberals -- often take women as their role models, with predictable results. They regard auto-castration as the quintessence of civilization and sophistication. They aren't really assertive in a male way, but a catty or bitchy way, like the New York Times or their quintessential shemale, Obama.

Again, male sexual development is inherently more complex and hazardous, for men must first love and identify with the female, only to make a clean break of it and then return to the same object as an adult. Many things can go wrong with this process at each step along the way, as the road is filled with conflict and ambivalence. It explains why men often have the harder time growing up. Still, that's no excuse to elect one president.

Someone once said that men marry women hoping they'll never change, while women marry men hoping to change them. Someone wants to change us, big time. But a big part of manhood is preserving and defending the precious things that were created and handed down to us by our forefathers.

We are about to elect a feminized man whose official policy is to surrender to our enemies, so we have moved well beyond the theoretical to the actual. In the triangulated war between liberals, Islamists, and the left, only one side can win. Our side will lose if we run out of real men because we simply do not create enough of them. We will lose if we allow the new cutural ideal of the feminized adultolescent male to become the ideal. We will lose if we forget that an upright and noble man with the capacity for righteous violence is at the very foundation of civilization.

Liberals sneer at such men, which is to say, men. I found a typical example by a college professor at dailykos, called A Pacifist’s Agony. S/h/it writes that “I've always hated the term ‘war crime,’ since it's an insidious tautology. It implies that some wars are not crimes, and some of the atrocities committed during war are excusable by virtue of their context. I believe that if there can be any single concept by which a civilization ought to be defined it's this: there is no context that can justify the intentional killing of a sentient being who does not wish it. Period” (somehow, I'm sure there is a loophole for abortion).

The professor's job is not to educate students but to make them “politically aware,” which in practice means to arrest their developmental journey toward adulthood. It is a form of spiritual and intellectual body-snatching; for the boys, it means a fantasized acquisition of manhood, for the girls, contempt for it. Before being indoctrinated, students are “not particularly politically aware,” but by semester’s end, if all goes well, they will be “different people. They now understand the direct relationship between their own deliberately inculcated ignorance and the crimes that are committed in their name.” They will have inverted reality, so that they imagine themselves to be Morally Superior to the primitive and murderous men who protect and defend them.

This is why the left must constantly attack and undermine America, for that is what allows the sense of moral superiority to flourish. But the attack brings with it the unconscious fear of father's retaliation, hence the hysterical fears of murderous retribution for "speaking truth" to Father -- fear of spying, of theocratic takeovers, of Al Gore's world melting. When leftists say that George Bush is the world's greatest terrorist, they mean it, although it goes without saying that they have no insight into the unconscious basis of this hysterical projection of their own fear converted to anger and persecution.

Oddly enough, the professor agrees with me that our civilization is threatened: “Chomsky's right. It's over for America. Not just this war, but the American idea. And right now, the peace I'm enjoying in my living room, every selfish mile I drive to and from my home, the electricity that's powering my computer, and the privilege of education that allows me to articulate these thoughts is bought with the blood and dust of all the Hadithas that have made a moment like this and a person like me possible. And it's more than I can bear.”

It’s a fascinating thing about truth. One of the things that makes a fellow believe in a deity, really. As every psychoanalytically informed psychologist knows, there is the patient, there is the truth, and there is the truth they would like to deny, which is why they are in your office. Truth has a life of its own, and has a way of insisting its way into the patient’s discourse, try as they might to prevent it from doing so.

The truth is true, and doesn’t actually require anyone to think it. But this is not so of the lie. The lie is entirely parasitic on a thinker. Furthermore, the lie knows the truth, otherwise it could not lie about it. Pacifism is just such a lie, for it contains the truth to which it is a reaction:

Right now, the peace I'm enjoying in my living room, every selfish mile I drive to and from my home, the electricity that's powering my computer, and the privilege of education that allows me to articulate these thoughts is bought with the blood and dust of men who are far better than I, men who stand ready to do violence against the forces of evil that have made a moment like this and a person like me possible. And it's more than I can bear.

55 Comments:

Tangential, perhaps, but I'm reminded of this post from earlier this week. The future does not look good for Western Civilization, if this is the type of education we are willing to bestow upon our children.

***

DUDE: Walter, you can't do that. These guys're like me, they're pacifists. Smokey was a conscientious objector.

WALTER: You know Dude, I myself dabbled with pacifism at one point. Not in Nam, of course--

Damb, Bob. Spot on. The explanation (again) of maleness and femaleness is something I need to hear (and which fascinates endlessly) but the big picture results and the "where we are today" analysis is (repeating myself here) spot on. I'll link and clip at length I suspect. But meanwhile, another question.

Where do we go from here? Other than writing and blogging and spreading the word as effectively as we can, alone or as coons or as the band in the wilderness, how do you engage people (and I specifically have my kids in mind here) who should see the truth, but don't/won't?

In the healthy separation of a boy from his mother would you say that there is a period (with varying degrees of dysfunction)of "healthy" mysogony extending from say 14 into the early 20s that he needs to go through and then move out of with the re-integration of the womanly archetype back into his life? And in keeping with my theory that the Left, for the most part, are emotionally crippled and arrested in their emotional development, a period which Bill Clinton still lives in to this day with his obsessive, passive-agressive party boy skirt chasing.Keep an eye out for those polititians with absent fathers who haven't evolved beyond the pain, you'll get more pathology than you bargained for.

Re healthy misogyny (as well as homophobia), oh my yes, absolutely! I don't have time to get into it, but Harvey Mansfield discusses it in his Manliness in a playful, provocative, and ironic manner. Women who can't handle getting their butts snapped with a towel in the locker room should stay away from this book! (Naturally, this would never apply to a Coon Woman, who knows how to fight like a man.)

"Once, men were simply men. But then feminists decided they were chauvinist pigs who didn't spend enough time doing the dishes. So along came the guilt-ridden New Man, swiftly followed by sensitive, moisturising Metrosexual Man. Of course, women soon missed the whiff of testosterone and were calling for the return of Real Men. Now a new book, The Retrosexual Manual: How To Be A Real Man, has been published. David Thomas tip-toes through the unashamedly macho details. . . "

I just spent all last week at a trade conference on the Amphib Base Little Creek Norfolk. Lots of Men walking around. All ranks; active and retired. No whining or complaining from this bunch about what the infants are into. Just going about the business of their brothers as if their pip squeak relatives were no bother at all. Because, quite frankly, they must seem inconsequential buzzing around them and the work that needs doing. So they enjoy their jobs once in awhile. So what. The “other males” get to enjoy themselves 24/7 if they like.

Did you know it takes 2 years training to become a SEAL. For very good reason I can’t know what all the training involves (anti-war types, feel free to use your imagination – you are at least predictable) but I saw a lot of the tools they will be using and they make Star Trek look like a TV show :-) Really lifted my spirits to be around these incredibly bright, well educated, strongmen who have or will be facing very real, very deadly bad guys. I’m telling you, protests, editorials and bumper stickers campaigns are no match for them.

I can’t imagine wanting to spend any time with the likes of that “college professor at dailykos.” But I suppose if that’s all you know…may explain it all. There may be less of these Men in number out there (hard to tell though when I was immersed in the culture last week) but I can assure you, we’re still making ‘em like we used to. Maybe better than we used to, if that’s possible. Thank God.

Now, I’m not a soldier, but I’ve met plenty. And I can tell you, not one of them has ever treated me the way I’ve heard anti-war types so casually enjoy “bitching” about soldiers they’ve never met. The soldiers I know are some of the nicest, most polite, humble, generous, accepting, respect-full people I have ever known.

(Mushroom, consider another stone pitched into the pen. I set my timer for the next squeal. Let’s see how long it takes :-)

It is interesting that the only way the left can "support the troops" is by converting them to victims of one sort or another. Support = reduce to victim status. They do this for all the usual reasons, but also because things like true heroism, courage, and putting one's life on the line to defend a transcendent ideal, are inconceivable to them. By converting them to victims, they imagine themselves superior to the men who so surpass them.

Leftists have turned the Democrat Party into "a disloyal opposition... They have molded the Party into a force working stridently and unashamedly against a Commander in Chief during wartime. They have made it a den of treachery devoted to American defeat in Iraq." The left is "a pseudo-intellectual sinkhole filled with perverse, tried-and-failed ideas repulsive to the majority of Americans. Those ideas are shaped into agendas which are then forced on the public by an activist leftwing judiciary and by a major media and arts consortium shot through with utter disrespect, indeed contempt, for traditional American values, religions and institutions.

"The Democratic Party has devolved into a club for the illegitimately aggrieved, the self-absorbed, the self-hating and the perpetually pissed-off. It is a sanctuary where solipsistic malcontents and their disjointed causes find refuge and support.... It is now the political province of the intellectually deceased, where frightened, lock-step ideologues and other small men and women concoct and promote divisive, destructive, weird and cowardly policies developed within a not-so-quaint, quasi-Marxist stricture of gender, class and race."

Countries like Canada, Australia and the UK have almost completely submerged themselves in the dank leftist waters. Citizens may not defend themselves, least of all against the depradations of their own runaway governments (see the naked fascism on display in Canada right now re the muzzling of Mark Steyn et al).

I still cannot -- will not -- believe that America has fallen so far, so fast that she will elect a man like Obama.

Leftism is about preempting questions, and replacing them with prompts and prefibbed 'answers' - aside from the Truth itself, there is nothing they fear more than questions, because those are the only routes to the Truth - I don't believe that you can come to the Truth, without Questioning. Note - not doubt, but Questions. Questions open the the space for solutions to be guided in and integrated into their space, as answers that complete and bridge that open space. Doubt, Cartesian Doubt, although it poses in the form of a question, is primarily a denial of an answer, and of answers as such.

Leftists want to impose answers acepted without thought, without questioning, there are no 'Who Am I?'s, only where can I go to 'Find myself' - not how do I become a Man, but what fashions can I adopt to strike these poses and pretend to be a woeman.

Questioning involves probing, pursuing one question with another, not for the purpose of further questioning, but for dusting away the falsehoods in order to more clearly reveal, integrate and accept the Truth. Where you find the dust of unclarity and falsehood, you seek to wipe it away, but when you reveal the polished surface of Truth, you admit and accept it, knowing that further rubbing and scratching will only dull and degrade it.

Doubt either leads to doubt for the sake of further doubts and the rejection of answers as such, or, as reaction against that sensed infinite loopiness, to evade the effort of deepening questions, to be able to strike the pose of 'Questioning!', but with the assurance that you only need to doubt one level deep and then you'll be absolved and able to accept the safe, accepted, popular, answer. "Why is healthcare expensive!" can be 'answered' with 'Because the Obamama hasn't yet been allowed to make it free!' and that's the only genuflection you need to perform, you're in, no need to ask further about effectiveness, and certainly no painful questions about Right and Wrong, puhleaze.

It's an initiation ritual into the church of leftism, you sacrifice your ability to Question, find and receive Truth, and you are awarded membership in the groups - algores, obamama's, wackademia's - for the one time price of admission of your eternal soul (discarded with the denial of true Questions and the Truth they bring you to), you get all the easy answers you feel like posing with, and you don't have to worry about whether one conflicts with another, for without One Truth, there is no conflict, no contradiction, no problems.

So what can we do? There is no 'answer' to that question, no answer that can be given or imposed, the only worthwhile answers can only be discovered by honestly questioning. So, I suppose the answer is to do what you suspected to begin with, "writing and blogging and spreading the word as effectively as we can, alone or as coons or as the band in the wilderness, how do you engage people " perhaps by showing them that there are further Questions to be asked, and that their 'answers' are laughable. Never forget the power of laughter directed at ludicrous 'answers'.

Call them on it, question them, laugh at them, show that there are further Questions to be asked... then they will be able to receive.

You are doing a pretty good job of engaging. I am in engaged but I also have never been a Democrat I have always been an Independent party voter. I think for me the reason I stick around is that you are unafraid to answer my questions, even if they appear silly, that makes we want to be here and it does help me to understand both why you guys think the way you do and why I think like I do and for me it has cause some real thought shift.

My father was all man, God rest his masculine soul. He fully evolved from man/mother to man/man and back to man/woman and father.

My dad grew up poor on a small farm - life was hard - and lack of manhood was not an option. My dad fought in the most brutal combat imaginable during World War II - on the Island of Saipan. He did what all soldiers have to do during the most desperate acts of war; he killed in order not to be killed. Dad didn't want to hurt anyone, but he was a killer when the time came to defend the life and liberty of America.

But dad had nightmares for many years - reliving those desperate acts of war in his dreams. And my dad almost always chose to sit next to the most lonely-looking soul when we went to public gatherings; he had compassion for a lonely man. I'm told by my mother that dad cried the first time he whipped my sister - and the first time he whipped my little rear end. Dad was hard on the outside and soft on the inside.

The Nanny state of Socialism will not remain soft and benign; it will evolve "scientifically" into the Tyrant State. Leftists are simply the velvet glove concealing an iron fist.

That's what they say -- a real man like Ronald Reagan is hard on the outside but soft on the inside. A wicked man like Jimmy Carter is soft on the outside but hard and bristly on the inside. Guess which one Obama is like.

I just got lassoed into taking over the scoutmaster duties for a boy scout troop in September, since I'm the one parent who can do it. I'm a good boy mom, but I'm adamant that boys should have a male scout leader.

I look at myself as the placeholder to keep the troop going until a male scoutmaster comes along.

In the meantime, what do you suggest I do in order not to smother/mother these young men?

From the link Julie's link linked to "The aims include fostering a model pupil who "values personal relationships, is a responsible and caring citizen, is entrepreneurial, able to manage risk and committed to sustainable development". ".

Not surprisingly, Kim du Toit takes some minimal comfort from noting that that's happening in Britain, not here.

Yes. Well. But… Kim du Toit'd do well to take note not so much of Britain today, but America... circa the 19th century... 1897 is a little late, but still not a bad place to start.

In "My Pedagogic Creed" by John Dewey, he states, "I believe that the schools is primarily a social institution.... Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child/s fitness for social life..." . In Democracy and Education, he wrote, "There is always a danger that increased personal independence will decrease the social capacity of an individual.... It often makes an individual so insensitive in his relations to others as to develop an illusion of being really able to stand and act alone - and unnamed from of insanity which is responsible for a large part of the remedial suffering of the world." He also noted that "Earlier liberalism regarded the separate and competing economic action of individuals as the means to social well-being as the end. We must reverse the perspective and see that socialized economy is the means of free individual development as the end". Dewey actually makes a good game of talking up the importance of teaching History... but then he gradually degrades what that means, down to teaching how to socialize kids into industrial society.

Even in Mathematics, he says "One of the absurd things in the more advanced study of arithmetic is the extent to which the child is introduced to numerical operations which have no distinctive mathematical principles characterizing them, but which represent certain general principles found in business relationships... The child is called upon to do examples in interest, partnership, banking, brokerage, and so on through a long string, and no pains are taken to see that, in connection with the arithmetic, he has any sense of the social realities involved. "

In Moral Principles in Education Dewey says "... The moral has been conceived in too goody-goody a way. Ultimate moral motives and forces are nothing more or less than social intelligence--the power of observing and comprehending social situations,--and social power--trained capacities of control--at work in the service of social interest and aims." and from inculcating social-morals, it's a short step to indoctrination, be it global warming or America is always bad.

Following the falling dominoes further into the 20th century, at an NEA meeting in 1934, Willard Givens, who would be the executive secretary of the NEA from 1935 to 1947, said this in "Education for the New America, ": "A dying laissez faire must be completely destroyed and all of us, including the owners, must be subjected to a large degree of social control. An equitable distribution of income will be sought, and the major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order."

1946, the National Education Association Journal published "The Teacher and World Government" by Joy Elmer Morgan, editor of the "NEA Journal" from 1921 through 1955, which states: "In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation. At the very top of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher and the organized profession."

As Abraham Lincoln said, "The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."

Sehoy, a good reference for you might be the Dangerous Book for Boys (which I would have read to pieces, had it been published when I was young). I'm fairly certain that some of the ideas in there can be easily adapted to scouting activities.

There is such a hunger -- almost a physical need -- at that age for "male mothering," and yet, our culture largely ignores it. It is a shame, because boys will end up imprinting whatever defective models they are given, and never grow into manhood. There is no way a woman can provide this type of mothering (nor could a homosexual man, obviously). It really is a form of initiation into the mystery cult of manhood.

"There is no way a woman can provide this type of mothering (nor could a homosexual man, obviously)."

So true; no matter how hard she tries, and no matter how manly a woman might be (by which I mean both gay women and tomboy types), there is no substitute for a good man as a significant role in a child's life.

One prominent interpretation of homosexuality, by the way, is that it is the sexualization (and de-spiritualization) of this male-to-male logos-energy. I've read studies indicating that most homosexuals were seduced and "initiated" by an older male as a teen.

'Although he has "defensively detached" from his father, the young boy still carries silently within him a terrible longing for the warmth, love, and encircling arms of the father he never did nor could have. Early on, he develops intense, nonsexual attachments to older boys he admires - but at a distance, repeating with them the same experience of longing and unavailability. When puberty sets in, sexual urges - which can attach themselves to any object, especially in males - rise to the surface and combine with his already intense need for masculine intimacy and warmth. He begins to develop homosexual crushes. Later he recalls, "My first sexual longings were directed not at girls but at boys. I was never interested in girls."

'As he matures (especially in our culture where early, extramarital sexual experiences are sanctioned and even encouraged), the youngster, now a teen, begins to experiment with homosexual activity. Or alternatively his needs for same-sex closeness may already have been taken advantage of by an older boy or man, who preyed upon him sexually when he was still a child. (Recall the studies that demonstrate the high incidence of sexual abuse in the childhood histories of homosexual men.) '

I believe the proper question would be "Is western civilization worth saving at this point?" Perhaps we are in need of a rejuvenation of sorts much as Byzantium was upon its conquest by the Turks. This culture makes me sick... Even republicans are corrupt beyond repair, i have lost hope. There is no great republic anymore, just a pathetic nation obsessed with which starlet will give the next blowjob on camera.

Anonymous said "Even republicans are corrupt beyond repair, i have lost hope. "

I'm sometimes prone to such pessimism too, but it really doesn't apply, and always soon passes; and really such thoughts if taken seriously, is The Hubris of the Doomed.

Things have always been bad, and things have never been better. Dangerous, yes - as always - but not doomed. We're is a far better position than any people in all of history have ever been, to prevail.

You've got to try though - quitters don't get much preferential treatment.

I understand your feelings of anger and dread - so it must have felt to our forefathers in the years just after Concord and Lexington, and after the Battle of Shiloh, and after Pearl Harbor. It is depressing to look into the face of evil, and then into the face of appeasement and cowardice.

Here are a few quotes from our other greatest generations - to give you some hope and encouragement. At the end of the day, the worst that can happen is to die in the struggle for life and liberty; and death in that struggle - whether the enemy is Totalitarian Islam or Totalitarian Socialism - is better than life under tyranny.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Thomas Jefferson

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Thomas Jefferson

“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.” Thomas Jefferson

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.” Abraham Lincoln

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry

Thanks for the book suggestion. I have checked out that particular book, but decided not to purchase it since it is very similar to "The American Boy's Handy Book" which I do have for my boys and enjoy myself.

gagdad bob: There is such a hunger -- almost a physical need -- at that age for "male mothering," and yet, our culture largely ignores it. It is a shame, because boys will end up imprinting whatever defective models they are given, and never grow into manhood. There is no way a woman can provide this type of mothering (nor could a homosexual man, obviously). It really is a form of initiation into the mystery cult of manhood.

Yup. Totally agree with this.

My husband and I talked about this and he will step into the scoutmaster postition as soon as he finishes his committment to helping coach baseball.

I'm convinced it's got to be a man doing this job.

(By the way, I asked him if he remembered what it was like to be fourteen. He said he couldn't.)

Bob,You cracked me up with s/h/it. I dug your comment about making victims of the troops, then supporting them and making oneself be superior to the poor victims. Can't that be said also about all the other victim groups that these superior people support?

Leslie,We are currently caring for an infant who was born cocained and alcoholed. We got him on day four of his life, and he is now three months. He is just now starting to relax a bit and smile and talk to us.

Wow. I can still remember every day of being 14. In fact, I woke up this morning thinking about it. While the memories drifted past, a song from a few years later spontaneously ran through my head:

I awoke last night to the sound of thunderHow far off I sat and wonderedStarted humming a song from 1962Ain't it funny how the night movesWhen you just don't seem to have as much to loseStrange how the night movesWith autumn closing in

Bob wrote:"Leslie,We are currently caring for an infant who was born cocained and alcoholed. We got him on day four of his life, and he is now three months. He is just now starting to relax a bit and smile and talk to us."

Dear Bob, I just can't imagine doing such an amazing thing as fostering various children, including drug addicted infants. You and your wife are incredibly special people and it's heartening and humbling to hear about it.

Van said-"Things have always been bad, and things have never been better. Dangerous, yes - as always - but not doomed. We're is a far better position than any people in all of history have ever been, to prevail.

You've got to try though - quitters don't get much preferential treatment."

Bravo Zulu, Van! Well said!Yes, there's a lot of evil out there...both within and without.But as Van said so well, it has always been so.

And there has always been a remnant that just won't stop fighting that evil, in whatever form it happens to take.

We are truly blessed in America to have millions of folks who will fight to protect and preserve one of the greatest God given gifts man has; Liberty!

Patriots, past and present have died for it, which makes it all the more precious and meaningful!

Remember them anytime you feel like everything has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Remember those Heroes, past and present, whenever you wanna throw up your hands and quit.

Spirit Rider quoted just a few of the many awesome quotes of Patriots past.When I read those words I get reenergized and my determination to keep fighting is renewed! How can I not be inspired by Heroes such as these?!

If they don't inspire and motivate you to continue that fight against evil, then nothing will.

We all must do our part, 'cause no one else is gonna do it for us.And even if someone else did do it for us, we wouldn't be nearly as grateful, and we wouldn't come close to understanding how valuable Liberty is.

Leslie said-"Maybe God created us to love the potential in our babies (and men) so we don't abandon them once the screaming outpaces the gazing lovingly into our eyes."

He must have, 'cause Lord knows it ain't easy!I'm reminded of when our daughters were in the terrible twos, and threes (and fours and fives, with one).

That period is truly a battle of wills, in a sense, and it's difficult to not give in to the incessant demands (the store was always sooo much fun during this time, what with folks lookin' at us as if we were abusing our children).

All I can say, from my experience, it does get easier, at least in that sense, and then the questions get harder and harder. :^)

But that was much better than temper tantrums, and those innocent questions sure made me think. LOL!

I also notice that some on the left portray our Troops as goons workin' for the Man. They are always at one extreme: passive or aggressive. And they are always smug, being so superior and all, and so brave and courageous to say it.

And I concur wholeheartedly with what Leslie said.God bless you and your wife!You both are Heroes in my book!

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About Me

Location: Floating in His Cloud-Hidden Bobservatory, Inside the Centers for Spiritual Disease Control and Pretension, Tonga

Who?! spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!